Thursday, 30 May 2013

After the RT campaign you have already seen, it was time to play some 2nd Ed.

I was totally rusty about the rules. Besides, a friend who had never played wargames wanted a baptism of fire. So we chose an easy way of approaching the game, we played the first Armaggedon Scenario which was supplied within the 2nd Ed. box. Five Space Marines and thirty Gretchins. It was enough for us to cope with. I didn't have any Blood Angels Space Marines, so we had to play with Ultramarines:

I really have to work on the scenery issue

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Ultramarines also fought in Armaggedon, so fluff respectful 100%

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Full scale battle. 2nd Ed times...

﻿Nowadays it looks impossible playing Warhammer without giant war machines of apocalyptic destruction power. But for me it's perfectly ok fighting these small skirmishes, where each man (or alien!) counts.

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Gretchin jam on one side of the board

The Space Marines and one of the Gretchin squads stood still to fire as much as they could, while the other two Gretchin squads﻿ advanced in order to be able to shoot at the Marines.

Man down! Man down!

Advance and shoot those nasty aliens!

Beware that flank!

The Space Marines adopted an open formation and used the flamer to burn some Gretchins.

I can't remember where I keep my 2nd Ed templates, so we used this one

The flamer not only inflicted casualties, but made another Gretchin catch in flames. The poor guy just escaped yelling (in the pic below, the one with the die). Each subsequent turn, the Ork player will have to roll a die to see if he still keeps burning (with chances of being injured, of course) or if he manages to put the flames out.

Ow, ow! Burns, burns!

The Marines decided to charge the enemy:

Smash them, my brothers!

This should be decisive, as the Space Marines strenght and skills are way much better than the Gretchins. Maybe this was going to be the turning point in this battle...

Die, alien scum, you die!

The Sarge and the flamer Marine even made the Gretchin Squad to demoralize and run:

Turn around! Run run!

The fleeing Gretchins even reached their burning fella:

I'm still in flames, don't run, don't let me hereeeee!!

The poor guy finally died because of the burns, and the other Squad decided to take over the other fight:

Oh, man, seriously?

The third Squad surrounded the Sarge and flamer...

... and shot him down.

The little green tide was overwhelming for the other battle brother:

However, he killed three little beasts before he fell

And this was the end of Turn Four, so the end of our introductory battle. The result? Two surviving Marines and a Gretchin Squad:

Let's call that a night and let's come back home

Space Marines got 1 victory point for each Squad they totally annihilated (so 2 points for the blue guys). Gretchins got 1 point if they killed 3 marines (2 if they killed them all), so they at least make some score!

That was the battle, it was fun taking this back again, with a few minis on the board and some individual actions which made the difference. Pretty nice enjoyable game, it made us want more. So it was fine, that was the whole point of this little skirmish!

I'll bring you some more 2nd Ed adventures as soon as I can! Hope you like it!

Monday, 27 May 2013

Current models are bulkier and more dreadful, but this model still keeps that 90's spirit﻿...
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Hiya, little cousin!

﻿But let's go on other machine... The Smasha Gun:

Yup, this is a gun. Ork cutting edge technology

If you remember the rules for this weapon, the gun shot a beam of 'traktor energy' and lifted the objective high in the air above the battlefield. Then the Gretchins shut the beam off, making the objective fall down and crash, hopefuly even smashing some other enemies (but if they were too enthusiastic and didn't control the beam properly, the victim could fall anywhere, even on themselves!).

Life is hard for tech support Gretchins

One of the things I most hated from the changes in 3rd Ed was the simplification of Ork weaponry. The designers totally drove the Ork charm and personality to oblivion. The goofy artillery, always as dangerous for the enemy as for yourself, was one of the funniest and greatest things of any Ork army, and was suddenly reduced to simple weapons with low aiming skill.

Well, that's it for today, I'll give you some more 2nd Ed love soon ;)

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Some more Dark Future today, to get more special rules and intense fighting.

New board display:

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Same boring table without any scenery

The game is essentially the same, two ﻿Renegades, a lead car and a chase car. The different thing here will be turning.
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You won't use turning lights

If you look at the pic above, you will see that the 'tiles' depict numbers. If you go into the curve at higher speed than it's marked, you need to pass a﻿ handling check, as you might well lose control of your car!

You may say 'well, it's no big deal, just go through the outer part of the curve'. But remember, things happen in this chase, the lead car has to think a strategy, like throwing its 'passive weapons' (oil, nails... even mines!) and forcing the chase car to dodge them.

This one was easy, but you get the idea: force the pursuer to go where you want him to go!

The chase car loses some speed, the lead car takes advantage!

Depending on the weapons mounted on the chase car, they might only fire straight shoots, with no arc of fire. Then, the chase car must be right behind the lead car to shoot. That might lead you to a trap, but you just have to take risks. sometimes...

Nothing happened! Lucky you!

You will not escaaaapeeee!!

Firing is quite easy due to the tile system of the game. But what happens in the curves, where tiles can be a little bit confusing? No problem, we have our wonderful 80's measuring device:

'Dakka dakka boom'

As the line of fire covers two tiles, so another shot is possible

But the lead car finally escapes!

As you can see, the lead car strategy is what sets the pace, the chase car can only try to gun it down taking care of the traps.

But let's see another fight to death to make things more interesting!

The table was not big enough!

﻿We had two Renegades on the run and an Interceptor chasing them:

You can run, but you cannot hide...

We weren't strict about points and so, we just played for fun (and for the show!)

The Interceptor is a beast of the road, heavily armoured, equipped with dreadful weapons and really, really fast. What chances do the Renegades bear against it?

To the outer curve in order not to lose speed

They both set traps

What can the Interceptor do? The pursuer cannot allow losing too much speed. Hm, let's take the risk﻿:
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Boom! A mine!

#&%@*!!! Critical hit!

The Interceptor was heavily damaged, losing handling/speed/brake points. But it still was on the chase, firing and causing some damage too:

More traps?

'Oh, now the Renegade expects me to avoid the trap, he thinks I have learned the lesson. Thats a dummy for sure﻿...'

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#&%@*!!!

Once in the curve, you cannot turn to the inner side of it, only to the outer side (inertia, centrifuge/centripetal movement and all that science stuff). So that's the moment for another gift...

Can't believe this. Another one? Oh, c'mon...

Let's do something different: the Interceptor speeded up...

Whomp!

The damage is determined by the difference between the speed of the lead/chase car. This particular example caused no damage, but a front crash can be totally deadly!

The run went on...

This was so predictable... But it was the last mine!

Interceptor turn. Shoots with the devastatingly powerful weapon at no distance. Destruction is for granted...
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A 'one'! How? Hoooowwww?

Failed shoot!
But right after that the Interceptor shooted again and...
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Gotcha! (Car turned for dramatical purposes. No player was injured during the action)

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﻿One Renegade was destroyed, but that doesn't mean that the car must be taken from the road. Oh, no, there are special rules when a car is destroyed. The vehicle must move on on each subsequent phase, losing speed from phase to phase (If you remember, each car had as many phases as its speed allowed, one per each 20 mph). So it will be moving forward until totally stops or gets off the road.

That's what happened here, the destroyed Renegade moved along (bursting in flames and smoke, you know) while the damaged Interceptor kept on chasing the other Renegade:

Ooops, we're gonna crash!!

CRASH! Told you!

The Renegade received some damage, but managed to elude the worst part of it. The destroyed car just went out of the road and the surviving Renegade shoot at the Interceptor, finally destroying it permanently too. Phew!

That was it! As you can see, the lead car always looks to have some advantage and that the chase car has to work really hard to take the pursued one down.

Did you like these experiences with Dark Future? Maybe you will see some things more soon, as Keyan and I are working on some other concepts for this game.
Soon...
Soon...